High Speed Rotating Heat Pipe for Aircraft Applications

The rotating heat pipe (RHP) technology is revisited in the context of finding a suitable thermal management solution for the advanced electrical machines such as switched reluctance and permanent magnet types. These machines, with potential applications involving direct mounting to gas turbine main shaft, have very high operating speeds and rotor thermal loads requiring new research studies on the use of RHP technology. The RHP literature data of the 1970's and 1980's are mostly limited to low speeds and off-axis mode tests. In this paper, results of a stainless steel - water on-axis RHP are presented. Also, potential application areas are identified.